Married to fellow writer Michael Preston, British author Diana Preston reveals that travel is always on their cards. The couple chose India as the first faraway destination to visit, knowing little that the country would eventually become the centre of many novels they would pen together.
Diana admits, “I have lost count of the number of times I have visited India since then. The country has just got
beneath my skin. From the shore temples of the South to the Northern fringes of the country, we have seen it all. Every time we come back, we go away learning a lot.”
It was on her first trip to India that Diana developed her interest in the Mughal history of India, gazing at the majestic Taj Mahal and walking down the Fatehpur Sikri corridors. Diana adds, “It led us further back into the chronicles of the Mughal era. Five years ago, we wrote our book on the Taj Mahal.”
Writing novels exclusively centred around this glorious historical period required several research trips. The author laughs as she recounts, “We had so much travel to do that we even got ourselves round trip railway passes. To capture all the sights and sounds of the country, we preferred travelling at night.” They also decided to do all their traveling by train.
She explains, “Despite being convenient to fly, the railway is perhaps the best way to see India. For a storyteller, it is so important to know how the landscape looks, or how the desert looks at sunset.”
For their recent novel titled Empires of the Moghuls: Brothers at War, Diana and Michael decided to give their home country a miss to launch it in India. The author explains her decision, “We will wait another two months to launch it in UK and will then proceed to US. I am intrigued to see the response here and people also relate to an exciting adventure story. People in India have responded so warmly and we take it as a huge compliment.”
